Richard Owen and the sea-serpent

The well known naturalist, Richard Owen, had a career long engagement with monstrous creatures. In the 1830s he famously christened large fossil reptiles, Dinosauria. He investigated fossil marine reptiles as well as the giant moa. He also looked into the sea-serpents and sea monsters then drawing wide public attention. He actively collected letters and analyzed correspondence on the topic, consulted with the admiralty on reports of Royal Navy encounters and sightings, and commented in the public press. He concluded that such reports were based upon misidentifications of whales and other large marine mammals, and not run-ins with mythological creatures. His work on the sea-serpent shows that rather than discount the idea out of hand, a number of high profile naturalists were intrigued by monsters and attempted to understand what they were. His work is key to understanding the skepticism over monsters held by modern mainstream science. This skepticism opened the field to later amateur investigators.     

Grand missions of agricultural innovation

This paper discusses three related examples of mission-oriented agricultural institutional innovations associated with substantial crop yield increases in the 20th century. It begins with the implementation of the United States Land-Grant System and then discusses in turn the planning and implementation of the two grand missions that led successively to the yield increases in wheat and rice that heralded the onset of the “Green Revolution.” It notes the remarkable role of the Rockefeller Foundation in identifying these two missions, and selecting personnel developed within the land-grant system to execute them with remarkable effectiveness.     

Automatic detection of collisions in elite level rugby union using a wearable sensing device

Elite rugby union teams currently employ the latest technology to monitor and evaluate the physical demands of training and games on their players. Tackling has been shown to be the most common cause of injury in rugby union, yet current player monitoring technology does not effectively evaluate player tackling measurements. Currently, to evaluate measurements specific to player tackles, a time-consuming manual analysis of player sensor data and video footage is required. The purpose of this work is to investigate tackle modeling techniques which can be utilised to automatically detect player tackles and collisions using sensing technology already being used by elite international and club level rugby union teams. This paper discusses issues relevant to automatic tackle analysis, describes a technique to detect tackles using sensing data and validates the technique by comparing automatically detected collisions to manually labeled collisions using data from elite club and international level players. The results of the validation show that the system is able to consistently identify collisions with very few false positives and false negatives, achieving a recall and precision rating of 0.933 and 0.958, respectively. The aim is that the automatically detected tackles can provide coaching, medical and strength and conditioning staff with objective tackle-specific measurements, in real time, which can be used in injury prevention and rehabilitation strategies.     

Stability, change, and correlates of the peer relationships of young children with mild developmental delays

The peer relationships of young children with mild developmental (cognitive) delays recruited at 4-6 years of age were examined in a longitudinal study across a 2-year period. Results revealed only modest increases in children's peer interactions, a high degree of intraindividual stability, and the existence of a poorly organized and conflict-prone pattern of peer interactions. Child cognitive and language levels as well as family stress and support were associated with children's peer interactions. A subgroup was identified of initially low interactors who were at especially high risk for future peer interaction problems. These findings further underscore the importance of designing and implementing early intervention programs in the area of peer relationships for children with mild developmental delays.     

A simple and effective protein folding activity suitable for large lectures

This article describes a simple and inexpensive hands-on simulation of protein folding suitable for use in large lecture classes. This activity uses a minimum of parts, tools, and skill to simulate some of the fundamental principles of protein folding. The major concepts targeted are that proteins begin as linear polypeptides and fold to three-dimensional structures, noncovalent interactions drive this folding process, and the final folded shape of a protein depends on its amino acid sequence. At the start of the activity, students are given pieces of insulated wire from which they each construct and fold their own polypeptide. This activity was evaluated in three ways. A random sample of student-generated polypeptides collected after the activity shows that most students were able to create an appropriate structure. After this activity, students (n = 154) completed an open-ended survey. Their responses showed that more than three-quarters of the students learned one or more of the core concepts being demonstrated. Finally, a follow-up survey was conducted seven weeks after the activity; responses to this survey (n = 63) showed that a similar fraction of students still retained these key concepts. This activity should be useful in large introductory-level college biology or biochemistry lectures.     

The mentoring dilemma: guidance and/or direction?

Abstract

How effective is your mentoring programme? How does the nature of a mentoring programme influence outcomes? By looking beneath the process and practice, an examination, analysis and classification of the nature of current real‐life mentoring practice is made and a template for the identification of your own project is presented.     

EDITORIAL

Novice nurses encounter numerous factors that impact on their learning in the complex healthcare workplace. Registered nurses often work one‐on‐one with novices as preceptors to facilitate the development of novices’ clinical skills and socialisation into the profession. This paper explores the concept of preceptorship from novice nurses’ and preceptors’ perspective, drawing upon data from a project between a large healthcare organisation and a university in Melbourne, Australia. The study, framed in ethnomethodology, included fieldwork observation, interviews and student surveys; this paper focuses on data collected over a series of individual interviews with nursing students (n = 28) and preceptors (n = 25). Thematic analysis yielded six key themes: workplace socialisation, empathy, individuality, willingness to engage, changing support and a realisation [by novices about the preceptor role]. Findings highlight the complexity of workplace learning that is influenced by the idiosyncrasies of the individuals involved and the social milieu in which the learning takes place.     

The First Year at School: A Quantitative Investigation of the Attainment and Progress of Pupils∗

In England children must start school after their fifth birthday, but it is common for children to start when they are four in what is known as the Reception class. The Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) project collected data on 1700 pupils’ early mathematics and pre/early reading levels at the start and end of their Reception year. The on‐entry assessment proved to be a good predictor of performance in reading and mathematics at the end of reception and the progress which each child made was estimated. This progress was found to vary considerably between schools and the variation was much greater than that typically found in school effectiveness studies. The data provided a unique opportunity to compare the progress of children who had, and had not, been to school. The Reception year was found to have had a major impact on the literacy and numeracy of children. Multi‐level models were employed for the analysis and from the models Effect Sizes were computed to assist in comparing the importance of variables in the study. This approach provides a mechanism for comparing the findings of school effectiveness studies with experimental studies and meta‐analyses.     

Using information and communications technology as a pedagogical tool: a survey of initial teacher education in Scotland

Abstract

In common with other parts of the United Kingdom, teacher education in Scotland is facing a period of rapidly changing demands with respect to the use of information and communications technology (ICT), together with high levels of investment, rising expectations, and increased scrutiny and accountability. In this article, we present an account of a national survey of the ICT skills and attitudes of students entering and exiting from the teacher education institutions in Scotland in the session 1996-97. The students are extremely positive in their attitudes, their enthusiasm for ICT use in education is high and their aspirations clear – they expect ICT to permeate their professional work now and in the future. Their experiences during their period of training fall considerably short of their expectations. We discuss the reasons for some of the difficulties and consider the challenges faced by tutors in initial teacher education courses who must now ‘model the message’ of a learner-centred approach to the education of their students.